


Maybe, Just Maybe

by lululou



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Best Friends, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Hogwarts, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), One Shot, Pre-Hogwarts, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25055422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lululou/pseuds/lululou
Summary: In which Lily Evans looks across from her and realizes she loves James Potter. A series of flashbacks as she tried to pinpoint when this could've happened.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	Maybe, Just Maybe

Lily didn’t know how she ended up here, in the common room at 1AM, trying to catch her breath from laughing so hard, sitting across from one James Potter.  
\-----  
She supposes it started in fifth year. She hated the marauders in fifth year. All they did was make the common room uninhabitable for small talk and homework, taking it over with fireworks and firewhiskey whenever they pleased. There was nothing wrong with holing up in the dorm with Marlene and Dorcas, but sometimes she wanted to curl up in the squashy armchairs, dammit!  
  
Plus, most of her interactions with them were just taunts of a childish rivalry, and she was over that.  
  
“Oi, Evans! Care to join us for a butterbeer? Snuck some back from Hogsmeade!”  
  
“Honestly, Potter, it’s a wonder you’ve even made it to fifth year.”  
  
“I think you mean, ‘James, you’re so cool for getting top marks in transfiguration! I would love to study with you for O.W.L.s!’” The poor imitation of her own voice made her cringe.  
  
“More like it’d be such a shock to see you make a potion as pristine as mine. Pity I’m not available to tutor you through O.W.L.s this year.”  
  
She always wondered if she should use her shiny prefect badge to give herself some peace of mind, but Remus always caught her eye just in time to gesture: _Sorry about this. Promise I’ll take care of it._ He never did (obviously).  
  
It was hard to get mad at Remus, though. Right from the first rounds they made as prefects together, she appreciated his witty company. He quickly became a friend that never let their tasks get mundane, and took her mind off her piles of homework.  
  
“No way, Lily, you’ve never pulled an all-nighter?”  
  
“I don’t get why that’s so surprising. I sleep every night by 11. We all have the same work to do. What is keeping everyone else up so late?”  
  
“We can’t all have your motivation.”  
  
“Forget it, Marlene once shook me awake at 4am to ask about the invisibility potion. Absolutely ridiculous.”  
  
“In her defense, that potion was hard. Once I stayed up until 6am and James woke up just to yell at me. He really told me off, like, _what do you think you’re doing? Do you expect to grow at a healthy rate if you don’t let your body rest? When was the last time you drank water? I’m going to the kitchens to get you breakfast, and you’d better eat it!’_ ” The impersonation was complete with finger wagging and disappointed head shaking in a true mom fashion.  
  
Lily chuckled. The impression didn’t match the Potter Lily knew, except one point–“Of course the first thing Potter does is break rules, in any situation.”  
  
Remus smiled at that, holding up his hands in a defensive pose. “Hey, I know I can’t control my friends, but honestly, half the rules James breaks is to take care of the rest of us.”  
  
So maybe Lily heard a lot about James Potter from Remus. And maybe she thought it was something Potter had put Remus up to (“No, honestly, he’s not that much of a prat”) until she learned to recognize the sparkle in Remus’s eyes when he talked about what he loved. And maybe that led to Lily looking at Potter for a little longer. Noticing when he split his Honeydukes stash with Sirius after Sirius threw a letter into the fireplace. Seeing him rearrange a blanket to reach Peter’s feet after a tough exam. Hearing him comfort a first-year who received their first detention, and promising he wouldn’t let any upperclassmen bully them for losing a few house points.  
  
Or maybe it really changed in November, when–  
  
“You’re a WHAT?!”  
  
Remus sighed, picking at his uniform. “I know, I know it sounds bad, but I promise Dumbledore’s made a system to keep the students safe from me.”  
  
Lily’s head was reeling from the new information. “How.. what… How did you manage the last two months? How do you manage classes? I can barely make it out of my room during my period!”  
  
Remus looked at her tentatively. “So… you don’t hate me?”  
  
“Of course not. I’m not sure what prejudices the wizarding community has against werewolves, but I haven’t learned them. You’re ...just Remus, my friend. So yeah, I’ll take your shift tomorrow night. And any others you need.”  
  
“Thank you Lily, truly. Thank you so much. And please don’t tell anyone about this.”  
  
Lily just nodded, waving as they parted to go up their respective staircases back to their rooms. She spent the rest of the night behind the curtain around her bed, scanning her third-year DADA notes for the unit on werewolves.  
  
She spent the next night in eerie silence, patrolling the grounds alone. The transformation process seemed awfully painful, and she hoped Remus was alright. When she finished up around dawn, she knocked out on the common room sofa. She woke up to a pile for chocolate frogs and a note: “ _Remus told us you know about the furry little problem. Thanks for covering._ ”  
  
And maybe treats kept appearing after every full moon she helped cover, always in the same handwriting that was so obviously Potter’s. Never explicitly acknowledging each other, Lily would thank him and nudge him towards better snacks. He would criticize her choices, promoting his own favorites, but complied anyways.  
  
Or maybe it was later in the year, when Lily finally ended her friendship with Severus. The terribly public scene only added insult to the injury that her former best friend was, in fact, an incurable bigot. She could hear the whispers follow her as she made her way back to Gryffindor tower. She refused to put her head down, glaring at anyone who dared look her in the eye, but by the time she made it to the portrait hole, she was barely keeping it together. She was met with mixed glances around the common room. Some confusion, some surprise, a lot of concern from her friends. She must look like a mess. But all she wanted was to be alone.  
  
Just as Marlene was getting out of her chair, Lily felt an invisible wall go up around herself. She turned around and saw Potter with his wand up, closing the portrait hole behind him. He had cast a shield charm around her. He nodded at her to go, and she ran up the stairs gratefully, catching the beginning of his explanation to Marlene about what happened. No hint of gloating, taunting, or even judgement.  
  
He didn’t mention anything the next morning at breakfast, as Lily avoided looking at the Slytherin table at all costs. He didn’t mention anything when she roughly walked past both him and Severus in potions class. They stuck to cordial greetings and unspoken thanks for the rest of the year.  
  
Maybe Potter showed her grace and kindness when he could’ve been a bullying toerag about the whole thing. He may have done things she disagreed with in the past, but none of them were nearly as bad as what Severus had done as well. Potter’s heart was in the right place. With no one whispering counterpoints in her ear, she could finally admit, James Potter could be pretty nice.  
\-----  
Lily concedes, things could’ve changed in sixth year. Sixth year started off in the strangest way. Returning from the prefects meeting on the Hogwarts express, Lily and Remus walked together and reached his compartment first. She glanced in to see Sirius and Peter wrestling while James gave fighting feedback on the side. They quickly untied to greet Remus. James was the first to notice she was also there.  
  
“Lily! Have a good summer?”  
  
“Yes, I mean as well as I could have. Thank you for your letters. I didn’t realize how much I missed treacle tarts until I had your’s.”  
  
“No problem! My mum makes them great, it took a lot to wrestle one out of Sirius’s mouth.”  
  
“OI! I have more of a right to those goods than Evans does!!” Sirius protested on the side. At the same time Peter joked, “Why didn’t you write to _me_?”  
  
Lily giggled, but before she could apologize, Sirius continued, “Besides, you did share any of the stuff Evans sent back.”  
  
Lily raised an eyebrow at James, who turned red. He ran his hand through his hair, tousling it further. “They were too good to share, paddy boy, I have no regrets,” he mumbled.  
  
“Well no worries, I can always get my mum to send more and I’ll share with _all_ of you next time.” Lily assured them. The four broke into grins and waved her off as she headed towards her compartment with Marlene, Dorcas, and Alice.  
  
Their summer apart led to warmer feelings and more comfortable exchanges than they ever had in the previous five years combined. It was always sharp edges and competition; now fighting deescalated into banter and they were getting to actually know each other.  
  
So when her mum sent a lovely package of muggle pastries, she offered half to her roommates before stashing the other half away. After a long day of classes, she sat waiting in front of the fire, suppressing yawns until finally, the marauders stumbled in right before midnight. James and Sirius were caked in mud, likely from a long quidditch practice. Remus and Peter were dripping from the rain, probably from watching in the stands. Lily’s tiredness fled as she slipped into her sharp-tongued prefect mode.  
  
“What are you guys _doing?_ You better have cleaned up after yourselves in the hall!”  
  
Peter almost jumped from her sudden scolding. “They did, Lily, don’t worry–Remus wouldn’t have let them get away with anything less.”  
  
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Sirius teased.  
  
“Well, as a matter of fact it is. I had no idea quidditch practice was allowed to go on for so long. Unless…” Her expression made her unspoken words very clear: _unless you were out after hours for other reasons?_  
  
They all laughed, and Remus defended them, saying, “It’s like you have no faith in me as a fellow prefect!”  
  
“Honestly, after last year, can you blame me?”  
  
Another uproar as they ribbed their “goody two-shoes Remus” and Lily smiled along with these boys she tentatively considered her friends. She was content to just stay here chatting, when James prompted, “You look tired Lily. What’s keeping you up?”  
  
She quickly reached behind her to reveal a box of baked goods. “My mum just sent these today. The sooner you eat them the better they’ll taste, so I figured I’d wait up to give these to you.”  
  
James’s face lit up as he reached for a tart, only for Lily to push him aside and offer the box to Sirius first. “Hey, don’t pout at me! Apparently you didn’t share last time, so you get last pick now.”  
  
Maybe James complained, but that didn’t stop him from looking at his friends in such a loving way as they stuffed their faces. She watched as he wiped cream off Sirius's cheek and gave the last slice of custard pie to Peter, practically forced Remus to go to sleep first while he stayed behind himself to help her clean up. She felt herself wishing that her friend circle would merge with the marauders, and wild thought that never would’ve occurred to her in fourth-year. When their eyes met, she saw the same gaze of love and appreciation directed towards her as well.  
  
Or maybe it was around Christmas time, when Lily cajoled all her friends to stay at Hogwarts for the memories. She woke up on the first day of break to light streaming in through the crack in the window curtains. When she pulled the curtain wide, Marlene just responded with a snort and Dorcas turned away for a few more precious minutes of sleep. Snow barely dusted the grounds. Alice’s bed was already empty; Lily figured she had something planned alone with Frank before the rest of them could wake up and ruin it.  
  
She headed down the stairs to find James coming in through the portrait hole. He was trying to balance a huge tray, with a silver cover. He froze when he noticed her, expression sheepish.  
  
“Bollocks, you’re already up? I thought I could sneak down to the kitchens and surprise everyone with breakfast.”  
  
“Sorry but you’ve been beat by me, Alice, and Frank.”  
  
“Alice and Frank are up too? Where are they?” He looked around the empty common room for good measure.  
  
“Probably doing something romantic somewhere where we won’t tease them both to death. This was really sweet of you, James.”  
  
He ran his fingers through his bed head then rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, you know, I thought since it’s Christmas, and Remus had a rough full moon a couple nights ago, everyone would probably like a pick-me-up. Kinda sucks that you caught me, though.”  
  
“You’re strange, James Potter. You’re an arrogant toerag about things that don’t matter, but then you try to hide yourself when you do things like this.”  
  
“I think you’re just jealous I beat you in transfiguration _again_.”  
  
“You’re a potions legacy, you’d think you could at least keep up with me there.”  
  
“That’s only ‘cause you act like there’s mistletoe hanging over Slughorn’s ass.”  
  
“Fly a little too high on your broomstick again? Hypoxia makes you lose your sense.”  
  
They went back and forth, laughing at jabs that had no real force, as Lily helped James set out the food. Maybe Lily appreciated the time they could spend together, accidentally touching each others’ hands as they set down the biscuits and gravy next to each other. Maybe she couldn’t imagine this scene with anyone else but James, matching her wavelength. Dorcas was too nice and Remus was a morning grouch. Maybe she hoped it wouldn’t end so soon, that she would get more moments like this with James. But eventually they called down their friends (or in Lily’s case, dragged Marlene out of bed and down the stairs) to enjoy the lovely morning.  
  
Or maybe it was after the last Quidditch match of the year. Lily didn’t usually go to Quidditch games, but it was sunny out and James looked so animated when he asked her that she immediately gave in and went to dig up her favorite red-and-gold pullover.  
  
It had been surprisingly fun in the stands. Peter explained all the special plays while Alice and Dorcas screamed themselves hoarse with every move. James seemed to radiate confidence as he punched quaffles through the hoops and directed his team into formation. After a tough shot, he took a victory round and winked at their section, and maybe Lily’s face felt a little hot.  
  
No. That was just because the sun was out.  
  
Gryffindor was in the lead when the opposing seeker started zooming sporadically. Focus fixed on the snitch, she accidentally flew right into James, who had been diving to catch a quaffle. He fell clear off while the seeker held on by a hand to her own broom.  
  
The crowd fell silent when James hit the ground. And then quickly erupted into chaos. Madam Hooch blowing her whistle to call time-out. Madam Pomfrey running to assess the damage. Sirius flying down and Professor McGonagall having to restrain him. Lily keeping pace with Remus and Peter as they rushed to the hospital wing and begged to be let in.  
  
While they waited to be cleared, Lily remembered a certain statue Remus told her about on a round. Everyone else too preoccupied to care where she was going, she snuck through the one-eyed witch’s hump and made her way to Hogsmeade. She picked up chocolate frogs and chocoballs and sugar quills–all his favorites. By the time she made it back, Sirius was already at James’s bedside. Madam Pomfrey let her in after many warnings not to overwhelm the patient.  
  
“..eengrass that thick he just flew into you by accident? You believe that?”  
  
James managed a weak laugh. His arm was elevated and his face had a few scratches. “I’m fine. This is minor for a quidditch injury. Besides, if these scratches scar I’ll look even more fit.”  
  
“Don’t get ahead of yourself mate, your hair will never match mine.”  
  
“Only cause you steal dad’s potion. Lily, is that you?”  
  
“Oh hey, Evans, we were wondering where you went.”  
  
Lily stepped forward, smiling shyly. “Hi, James. You look better than I thought you would. What a relief.”  
  
“Well, well, well, Lily. You admit you care about my godly good looks?” James broke the tension immediately and Lily rolled her eyes, far more at ease. He was fine. A broken arm and a few cuts couldn’t break his spirit.  
  
Lily placed her Honeydukes bag on the table, staring at the salt block already there. She snapped out her confusion when Sirius said, “Not bad Evans, not bad at all.”  
  
She turned around to see Sirius nodding sagely at her. “Sneaking out to Hogsmeade was very low on my guesses as to where you went. There might be hope for you after all.”  
  
Lily shoved his shoulder a little, muttering, “Don’t doubt me.” She was about to gesture at the salt block, which apparently James and Sirius hadn’t thought anything of, when Sirius got out of his chair and stretched. “Well, I guess I’ll head back to the common room and give Evans my seat.”  
  
In a flurry, James and Sirius said goodbyes and goodnights and then suddenly, it was just them two.  
  
Lily sat down and resumed her question, “What’s with the salt block?”  
  
She did not understand James’s roaring laughter.  
  
“Sirius gave it to me. He’s such a nutter, I love him so much.”  
  
“I mean, I believe that he’s a nutter, and you might be too. What’s so funny about a salt block?”  
  
James just shook his head. “Looong story.”  
  
“Well, I’m sorry all I can offer you is a chocolate frog, no inside joke.” She reached into the bag to place the candy in his hand. James positively beamed at her. He shuffled through the bag, and exclaimed, “No way Lily. How’d you manage? All my favorite candies–how’d you know??”  
  
Lily rolled her eyes. “Don’t act dumb.”  
  
James grinned. “See, don’t say we don’t have any inside jokes. But really, Lily, thanks for this. It means a lot.”  
  
Maybe seeing James make her feel comfortable and included, even when he was an injured drama queen, warmed her heart. Maybe she thought his favorite things would be burned into her mind forever if it made James smile like that. Maybe she loved that Sirius had picked up the cue to leave and give them time alone. And maybe she stayed until Madam Pomfrey forced her out because she didn’t want to go back to Gryffindor tower until James could come back too.  
  
\-----  
Lily admits it might be happening now, in seventh year. Seventh year with James as her indisputable best friend and Head Boy counterpart to her Head Girl, her spot of brightness in the dark confusion of N.E.W.T.s and adult life and a brewing war.  
  
It was only week one, after their second meeting with the prefects. It was far past her bedtime, but James had a way of keeping her up. He was telling a story about his prank on Sirius that ended with Sirius fuming over hot pink hair and no matter what point it started, it now bubbled to the surface with her laughter, into a breathless, “I love you.”  
  
She means it. She loves James, who shows off his strange ability to look outwards in opposite directions with his eyes, who treated her to Fortescue’s when they found out they’d be named heads, who she only properly met in fifth year and wouldn’t have it any other way.  
  
Lily is so content with the fragile state of their platonic relationship, having James as her best friend.  
  
Although, maybe, and maybe soon, she would want that to transform into something more.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I always appreciate comments, feedback, and constructive criticism!  
> Also, I do feel an obligation to say: I love Harry Potter, the series is so important to me, but it cannot be separated from JK Rowling who has proven herself a terrible transphobe time and time again. So, if you have some time, please consider reading this article on black trans lives: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a32867836/black-trans-lives-matter-how-to-help-protest-donate/


End file.
